Daily Archives: 28 Jan 2019

I know that I don’t. And yet the fact is, the Bible talks about it, so we must. If simply to be faithful to God. And what does the Bible say? It says that God expects you to use a portion of your money to support the work of God.

Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have evaded my statutes and not observed them. Return to me and I will return to you, says Yahweh Sabaoth. You ask, “How are we to return? Can a human being cheat God?” Yet you try to cheat me! You ask, “How do we try to cheat you?” Over tithes and contributions.

A curse lies on you because you, this whole nation, try to cheat me. Bring the tithes in full to the treasury, so that there is food in my house; put me to the test now like this, says Yahweh Sabaoth, and see if I do not open the floodgates of heaven for you and pour out an abundant blessing for you. For your sakes, I shall forbid the locust to destroy the produce of your soil or prevent the vine from bearing fruit in your field, says Yahweh Sabaoth — (Mal. 3:7-11)

God established tithing as the means by which the work of ministry and ministries were to be funded. If people don’t tithe, ministry can’t happen. Even in ministry ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’.

If ministry matters to you, if feeding kids matters, if worship services matter, if hospital visits matter, if nursing home visits matter, if sick calls matter, if Sunday School matters, if hymn singing matters, if having a building to worship in matters, if pews matter, if heat and air conditioning matter, if Bible study matters, then it only stands to reason that people support those things and many others.

If, though, none of those things matter, then it only makes sense that people refrain from supporting them. And in due time there will be no food for the kids, no worship services, no hospital visits, no nursing home visits, no sick calls, no Sunday school, no hymn singing, no building to worship in, no pews to sit on, no heat or air conditioning, and no Bible study.

And more importantly, if none of those things are supported, God’s work goes undone. Not because pastors are greedy and crave wealth (most don’t, and never will be wealthy) but because even ministry costs. It’s just that simple.

God knows it and God has called on his people to fund the things related to ministry. If those things aren’t funded, God is robbed.

Christian people have to decide every week or every two weeks or every month or however often they are paid whether or not they will withhold from God what God has required of them. Most do. Will you? Or will robbing God turn the lights off once and for all?

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The ongoing debate over President Trump’s border wall has real-life significance along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Nogales, Arizona, a steel fence topped with razor wire already separates the two countries. It’s terrain that Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estradahas been patrolling for decades. He’s been in border law enforcement so long that the building where he works in Nogales is named after him.

Over the course of 26 years as sheriff, Estrada has witnessed significant changes along the border. Now, as descriptions of immigration chaos continue to emerge from Washington, he’s encouraging people to come to Nogales for proof of what’s apparent to him every day: “There is no crisis down here.”

“We have those issues of people coming across illegally — and that will always be a challenge — but to consider it a crisis, and think that a wall is going to take care of the problem, that’s an illusion, that’s a pipe dream, that’s a fantasy,” Estrada, a Mexico-born Democrat who immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler, tells Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd.

Drugs, not people, are the primary problem law enforcement officials confront at the border, Estrada says, namely at ports of entry. But he says a wall wouldn’t address that issue either.

“Not unless you put a wall at the ports of entry and you don’t let anything come through, and of course everything dies on both sides of the border,” he says. “So it’s a ridiculous attempt to try to convince people that that is going to stop drugs from coming into the United States.”

Listen to the whole interview.

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I would sooner keep house with a lion or a dragon than keep house with a spiteful wife. A woman’s spite changes her appearance and makes her face as grim as a bear’s. When her husband goes out to dinner with his neighbours, he cannot help heaving bitter sighs. No spite can approach the spite of a woman, may a sinner’s lot be hers! Like the climbing of a sandhill for elderly feet, such is a garrulous wife for a quiet husband. Do not be taken in by a woman’s beauty, never lose your head over a woman.

Bad temper, insolence and shame hold sway where the wife supports the husband. Low spirits, gloomy face, stricken heart: such is a spiteful wife. Slack hands and sagging knees: such is the wife who does not make her husband happy. Sin began with a woman, and thanks to her we must all die. Do not let water find a leak, nor a spiteful woman give free rein to her tongue. If she will not do as you tell her, get rid of her. (Sir. 25:16-26)

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Jesus therefore descended to earth to draw us up to Heaven. From the moment of His conception until His resurrection, He bore the punishment of our sins in order to unburden us of them. He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness so as to cover our unrighteousness. He has revealed to us the whole will of God His Father, by His words and by the example of His life, so as to show us the true way of salvation. ~Beza

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On July 17th, Zwingli had a debate with Francis Lambert of Avignon, a Franciscan monk of twenty years’ standing, and prominent in the order. The subject was the Intercession of the Saints. Lambert had already imbibed Reformation ideas and was under the suspicion of his brethren, but had not yet left his order. In the debate Zwingli took the extreme Protestant position, and Lambert made but a feeble opposition. At the conclusion he expressed himself as Zwingli’s convert. The incident is interesting as showing that Zwingli had broken with the Old Church on a point of great practical importance.

Long previous to the debate Zwingli had preached on the topic and had meditated publishing his sermons, but he never did so. Cf. Haller’s letter of January 28, 1522 (vii., 189), in which he said that he was daily expecting to read Zwingli’s sermon on the worship of the saints.

Zwingli discussed the debate in a letter shortly afterwards:

“You should know that a certain Franciscan from France, whose name indeed was Franz, was here not many days since and had much conversation with me concerning the Scriptural basis for the doctrine of the adoration of the saints and their intercession for us. He was not able to convince me with the assistance of a single passage of Scripture that the saints do pray for us, as he had with a great deal of assurance boasted he should do. At last he went on to Basel, where he recounted the affair in an entirely different way from the reality—in fact he lied about it. So it seemed good to me to let you know about these things that you might not be ignorant of that Cumæan lion, if perchance he should ever turn your way.

“There followed within six days another strife with our brethren the preachers of the [different orders in Zurich, especially with the Augustinians]. Finally the burgomaster and the Council appointed for them three commissioners on whom this was enjoined—that Aquinas and the rest of the doctors of that class being put aside they should base their arguments alone upon those sacred writings which are contained in the Bible. This troubled those beasts so much that one brother, the father reader of the order of Preachers [i. e., the Dominicans] cut loose from us, and we wept—as one weeps when a cross-grained and rich stepmother has departed this life. Meanwhile there are those who threaten, but God will turn the evil upon His enemies.

“I suppose you have read the petition which some of us have addressed to the Bishop of Constance.… But I must return to Schuerer upstairs, where he is having some beer with several gentlemen and jokes will be in order.*

It’s a shame the sermon was never published. It must have been fantastic.

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Personally I don’t believe him. And if he’s telling the truth, he should stop smoking pot or doing meth or whatever drug he’s taking that’s ruined what’s left of his brain.

A Tioga, Louisiana teen is facing animal cruelty charges after deputies said he shot a cow, but claimed that he thought he was shooting a raccoon. 17-year-old Linden Gibson was arrested Friday following an investigation. His charges include aggravated cruelty to an animal, criminal damage to property, and criminal trespassing.

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A son was just born to me, and I am a father again. Please help the poor fellow get where he belongs. He was born the first hour during the night of January 28 in the year 1533, and he was named Paul. I’ve had him named Paul because St. Paul furnished me with many a good passage and argument, and so I wish to honor him by naming a son after him. God grant my son grace! “I intend to send my children away [when they’re grown]. Any of them who wants to be a soldier I’ll send to Hans Loeser. Dr. Jonas and Philip will have any of them who may want to study. And if one wants to toil Ill dispatch him to a peasant.”